Part 25 (2/2)

I tried to think of a good charm to say, and I've known some, but right then they didn't come to mind. I grabbed up a stick from the pile for whatever good might come of it. I heard Evadare, her voice strong now: ”Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night.”

The dark things churned, the eye-sparks blinked. I could swear that they gave back for the length of a step.

”Nor for the arrow that flieth by day,” Evadare said on. ”Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness.”

They shrank back on themselves again. They surrounded us, but they were back from where they'd been.

”What did you say to them?” I inquired Evadare, still with the stick ready.

”The Ninety-first Psalm,” she said back. ”It was all I could think of that might could possibly help.”

”It helped,” I said, and thought how I'd stood like a gone gump, not able to call up one good word to save us. ”If those were sins a-sneaking in ” I said, ”there was a sight of them, but good words made them wait.”

”How long will they wait?” she wondered me, little and huddled down by the fire. She was scared, gentlemen; and, no I reckon about it, so was I.

Those many sins, a-taking shape and hungry to grab onto somebody. One might not be too bad. You'd face up to one, maybe drive it back, maybe get it down and stomp it. But all of those together all sides of you, gummed into one misty ma.s.s. Being scared didn't help. You had to think of something to do.

Think what?

No way to run off from Trill Coster's sins, bunched all round us. Maybe the firelight slowed them some, slowed the terror by night, the pestilence in darkness. Evadare had taken them on her, and here they were. She kept whispering prayers. Meanwhile, they'd pulled back some. Now their eye-sparks showed thirty or forty feet away, all directions. I put wood on the fire. The flames stood up, not so much blue in the red now.

I took up my guitar and dared sit down. Old folks allow the devil is afraid of music. I picked and I sang:

The needle's eye that doth supply The thread that runs so true, And many a la.s.s have I let pa.s.s Because I thought of you.

And many a dark and stormy night I walked these mountains through; I'd stub my toe and down I'd go Because I thought of you.

Then again a loud, rattling laugh, and I got up. The laugh again. Into the firelight there walked that bare-shouldered woman called Nallie Willoughby, a-weaving herself while she walked, a-clappping her hands while she tossed her syrupy hair.

”I call that pretty singing, John,” she laughed to me. ”You aim to sleep here tonight? The ground makes a hard bed, that's a natural fact. Let me make you up a soft bed at my place.”

”I mustn't go from here right now,” said Evadare's soft voice. ”I've got me something to do hereabouts.”

Nollie quartered her eyes round to me. ”Then just you come, John. I done told vou it'll be a soft bed.”

”I thank you most to death,” I said, ”but no, ma'am, I stay here with Evadare.”

”You're just a d.a.m.ned fool,” she scorned me.

”A fool, likely enough,” I agreed her. ”But not d.a.m.ned. Not yet.”

She sat down at the fire without being bid to. There was enough of her to make one and a half of Evadare, and pretty too, but no way as pretty as Evadare-no way.

”All the folks act pure scared to come near youins,” she told us. ”I came to show there's naught to fear from Trill Coster's sins. I nair feared her nor her ways when she lived. I don't fear them now she's down under the dirt. All the men that followed her round-they'll follow me round now.”

”Which is why you're glad she's dead,” Evadare guessed. ”You were jealous of her.”

Nollie looked at her, fit to strike her dead. ”Not for those sorry men,” she said. ”I don't touch other women's leavings.” She put her eyes to me. ”You don't look nor act like that sort of man, John. I'll warrant you're a right much of a man.”

”I do my best most times,” I said.

”I might could help you along,” she smiled with her wide lips.

”Think that if it pleasures you,” I said. I thought back on women I'd known. Donie Carawan, who'd sweet-talked me the night the Little Black Train came for her; Winnie, who'd blessed my name for how I'd finished the Ugly Bird; Vandy, whose song I still sang now and then; but above and past them all, little Evadare, a-sitting tired and worried there by the fire, with the crowd and cloud of another woman's sins she'd taken, all round her, a-trying to dare come get hold of her.

”If I'd listen to you,” I said to Nollie. ”If I heeded one mumbling word of your talk.”

”Jake said you're named Evadare,” said Nollie across the fire. ”You came here with John and spoke up big to take Trill's sin-burden and pray it out. What if I took that burden off you and took John along with it?”

”You done already made John that offer,” said Evadare, quiet and gentle, ”and he told you what he thought of it.”

”Sure enough,” Nollie laughed her laugh, with hardness in it. ”John's just a-playing hard to get.”

”He's hard to get, I agree you,” said Evadare, ”but he's not a-playing.”

”Getting right cloudy round here,” Nollie said, a-looking over that smooth bare shoulder of hers.

She spoke truth. The clumpy mist with its eye-greens was on the move again, like before. It hung close to the ground. I saw tree branches above it. The shapes in it were half-shapes. I saw one like what children make out of snow for a man, but this was dark, not snowy. It had head, shoulders, two s.h.i.+ny green eyes. Webbed next to it, a bunch of the things that minded you of dogs without being dogs. Green eyes too, and white flashes that looked like teeth.

Those dog things had tongues too, out at us, like as if to lap at us. Evadare was a-praying under her breath, and Nollie laughed again.

”If you fear sin,” she mocked us, ”you go afraid air minute of your life.”

That was the truth too, as I reckoned, so I said nothing. I looked on the half-made hike of the man shape. It molded itself while I looked. Up came two steamy rags like arms. I wondered myself if it had hands, if it could take hold; if it could grab Evadare, grab me.

One arm-rag curled up high and whipped itself at us. It threw something-a whole mess of something. A little rain of twinkles round the root where Evadare had sat since first we built the fire.

”Oh,” she whispered, not loud enough for a cry.

I ran to her, to see if she'd been hit and hurt. She looked down at the scatter of bright things round her. I knelt to s.n.a.t.c.h one up.

By the firelight, I saw that it was a jewel. Red as blood, bright as fire. I'm no jeweler, but I've seen rubies in my time. This was a big one.

Evadare bent with both hands out, to pick the things up. From the mist stole out soft noises, noises like laughter-not as loud as Nollie could laugh, but meaner, uglier.

”Don't take those things,” I said to Evadare. ”Not from what wants to give them to you.” I sent myself to throw that big ruby.

”No,” said Evadare, and got up, too. ”I must do it. I'm the one who took the sins. I'm the one to say no to them.”

She made a flinging motion with her arm, underhand, the way girls are apt to throw. I saw those jewels wink in the firelight as they sailed through the air. Red for rubies, white for diamonds, other colors for other ones. They struck in among the misty shapes. I swear they plopped, like stones flung in greasy water.

”Give me,” she said, and took the big ruby from me. She flung it after the others. It made a singy sound in the air. Back from the cloudy ma.s.s beat a tired, hunting breath, like somebody pained and sorrowed.

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